Plan for multilanguage and Proofing Tools deployment for Office 2010

To deploy Microsoft Office 2010 with multiple languages, you must plan carefully. This article discusses the planning considerations for Setup and the customizations that you can make when you install language packs or proofing tools.

The language-neutral design of Office 2010 helps simplify the deployment of Office products in multiple languages. Instead of creating a series of installations, you enable Setup to coordinate a single installation of multiple language versions.

All language-specific components for a particular language are contained in a Microsoft Office 2010 Language Pack. Each Office 2010 Language Pack includes language-specific folders for all Office 2010 products that are available in that language. Folders are identified by a language tag appended to the folder name. For a complete list of language tags, see Language identifiers and OptionState Id values in Office 2010.

You copy all the Office 2010 Language Packs that you need to a network installation point that contains at least one complete Office 2010 product. By default, Setup automatically installs the language version that matches the Windows user locale that is set on each user's computer. Or, you can override this default behavior and manage the distribution of multiple language versions more precisely. For example, you can:

Install more than one language on a single computer.

Specify which languages to install on users' computers, regardless of the language of the operating system, which is specified by user locale.

Specify custom settings once and then apply them to all language versions that you deploy in your organization.

Each Office 2010 Language Pack contains the proofing tools for one or more additional languages. For example, the Office 2010 Language Pack - Danish contains the proofing tools for English and German, in addition to Danish. All Office 2010 Language Packs contain the proofing tools for English. For more information about proofing tools, see Plan for proofing tools.

Before it installs a language version of an Office 2010 product, Setup determines whether the user has the required operating system support for that language. Setup stops the installation if there is no support. For example, if a user has not enabled support for East Asian languages, Setup does not install the Japanese version of Office 2010.

It is important to plan which languages will be needed at the beginning of your deployment. There are special steps that you must take if you have to change users' configurations after the initial deployment and include additional languages as part of your customizations. For more information, see Add or remove language packs after deployment of Office 2010.

Whenever you deploy the Office 2010 from a network installation point that contains more than one language version, Setup must determine which language to use for the Setup user interface. By default, Setup uses that same language for the Office 2010 installation language and for the Shell user interface (Shell UI). The Shell UI includes core elements of Office 2010 that register with the operating system, such file name extensions, Tool Tips, and right-click menu items.

If your objective is to install only one language version of Office 2010 on each client computer and if you do not specify any additional languages in the Config.xml file, Setup uses the following logic to determine which language to use:

Setup matches the language of the user locale.

If there is no match, Setup looks for a close match. If the user locale is set to English (Canada), for example, Setup might install Office 2010 in English (U.S).

If there is no close match, Setup looks for a language in the following subkey in the Windows registry:

If the InstallLanguage entry has not been added to the LanguageResources subkey and set to a particular language (LCID), Setup prompts the user to select a language (in an interactive installation), or the installation fails (in a quiet installation).

If your objective is to install more than one language version of Office 2010 on each client computer, you should edit the Config.xml file and set the <AddLanguage> element for each language that you want to include. However, when you add more than one language in the Config.xml file, you must specify which of those languages Setup should use for the Shell UI. If the Shell UI language is not specified, the installation fails.

You specify a language for the Shell UI by setting the ShellTransform attribute of the <AddLanguage> element. In this case, the language of the Setup user interface follows the logic described previously. However, the languages installed on the computer and the language of the Shell UI are determined by the entries in the Config.xml file.

Setup always installs Office 2010 in the language of the Shell UI, in addition to any other installation languages. For example, if the Shell UI is set to French, the user can select additional installation languages on the Languages tab; however, the user cannot remove French.

When a user starts an Office 2010 application for the first time, Setup applies default settings that match the language installed on the computer and the language specified by the Windows user locale setting.

Four main language settings affect the way users work with Office 2010:

Primary editing language When more than one language version of Office 2010 is installed on the computer, this setting determines the language in which users work with Office applications and documents.

Enabled editing languages Users can specify more than one language for editing Office 2010 documents. Depending on the languages selected, this setting might require that the user has installed additional proofing tools.

User interface language This setting determines the language in which the user interface (menus and dialog boxes) is displayed.

Help language This setting determines the language in which users view Help topics.

You can configure these language settings for users in advance. If you specify custom language settings when you install Office, by applying a Setup customization file (.msp file) or by setting policies, Office 2010 does not overwrite your settings with the default settings when users start the applications for the first time.

You configure language settings by using one of the following methods:

Group policies Group Policies enforce default language settings. Users in your organization cannot permanently change settings managed by policy. The settings are reapplied every time that the user logs on.

The following policies help you manage language settings in the Office 2010:

Display menus and dialog boxes in Located in the Display Language folder. This determines the language of the user interface.

Display help in Located in the Display Language folder. This determines the language of online Help. If this policy is not configured, the Help language uses the user interface language.

Enabled Editing Languages Located in the Editing Languages folder. This enables editing languages from the list of languages supported by Office.

Primary Editing Language Located in the Enabled Editing Languages folder. This specifies the language in which users work with Office applications and documents when more than one language version is available on the computer.

Office Customization Tool (OCT) You use the OCT to create a Setup customization file (.msp file) that Setup applies during the installation. Settings specified in the OCT are the default settings. Users can change the settings after the installation.

Language Settings tool If you do not enforce language settings by policy, users who work in Office 2010 applications can use the Language Settings tool to change their language settings.

Typically, after you configure language settings by using one of the methods described in this article, Setup applies default settings that match the language that is installed on the computer when a user starts an Office 2010 application for the first time. This means the new language settings will display the next (second) time that the user starts the Office 2010 application.

If you want users to view the new language settings the first time that they open an Office 2010 application, you can deploy the following registry settings to their computers when you deploy an initial Office 2010 installation, or before they have to use an Office 2010 application. You can deploy these registry settings by using a script or batch file, Group Policy, or the OCT. The registry settings that you must configure are the following DWORD values under the HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\14.0\Common\LanguageResources key:

In addition to using the Primary Editing Language setting, the Office 2010 also configures language-related settings, such as number format, to match the user locale of the operating system. This behavior is controlled by the LangTuneUp entry in the LanguageResources subkey in the Windows registry. If you do not want user locale to affect default settings, you can reset the value of LangTuneUp when you install Office 2010. If the LangTuneUp entry does not exist, Office 2010 creates the entry the first time that an application starts and sets the value to OfficeCompleted.

The LangTuneUp entry can have one of two values:

OfficeCompleted Settings based on user locale are not applied to Office 2010 as a whole. However, individual applications still check for new input method editors (IMEs) and language scripts, and still apply application settings that are specific to the user locale. For example, applications ensure that newly installed keyboards have the appropriate editing languages enabled, and Word uses fonts in Normal.dot based on user locale.

Prohibited No settings related to user locale are modified by Office 2010 or by any individual Office 2010 application.

In some scenarios, ignoring the user locale setting can help maintain a standard configuration across a multilingual organization. Setting the LangTuneUp entry to Prohibited ensures that language settings remain consistent and macros are more compatible internationally.

For example, if your organization is based in the United States and you want to standardize settings internationally, you can deploy Office 2010 with Primary Editing Language set to en-us (U.S. English) and LangTuneUp set to Prohibited. In this scenario, users receive the same default settings, regardless of their user locale.

Ignoring user locale is not always the best option. For example, users who read and enter Asian characters in Office 2010 documents might not always have the Asian fonts they must have to display characters correctly. If the installation language on the user’s computer does not match the language that was used in the document and LangTuneUp is set to Prohibited, Office 2010 does not display fonts in the non-default language. If your Office 2010 installations need to support multiple Asian language user locales, make sure LangTuneUp continues to be set to OfficeCompleted. To help ensure that users do not change the default value, set the corresponding policy.

Proofing tools let users edit documents in more than 50 languages. Depending on the language, these editing tools might include spelling and grammar checkers, thesauruses, and hyphenators. Proofing tools might also include language-specific editing features such as Language AutoDetect, AutoSummarize, and Intelligent AutoCorrect.

The Office 2010 Proofing Tools Kit provides a single resource from which you can install any of the proofing tools. You can install proofing tools on a local computer or deploy tools to a group of users. You can also customize and install the tools for one user or all users in your organization.

You can deploy additional proofing tools for users who have to edit documents in languages other than those already installed on their computers. You can deploy additional proofing tools from either of these sources:

Office 2010 Language Pack Use this option if users need both the user interface and the proofing tools for the language, or if one language pack can provide all the proofing tool languages that you need. Be aware that each language version of the Office 2010 includes proofing tools for a set of companion languages. For example, when you deploy the English version of an Office 2010 product, users receive proofing tools for both Spanish and French in addition to English. Depending on the number of user interface languages that you want to deploy and the included companion languages, Office 2010 Language Packs might provide all of the proofing tools that you need.

Office 2010 Proofing Tools Kit This product contains the proofing tools for all of the languages that are available with Office 2010. Use this option if you do not need the user interface for the language and you must have many proofing tools that are not included in the set of companion languages for any languages installed or included in an additional language pack that you could install.

The hard disk space requirement to install proofing tools is 1 gigabyte (GB). However, the overall disk space depends on whether you deploy proofing tools from a language pack or from the Office 2010 Proofing Tools Kit. As with most products in the Office 2010, the complete Office 2010 Proofing Tools Kit package is cached to the local installation source (LIS).

Note

Proofing tools do not include bilingual dictionaries or word breakers. Those tools are part of the language version or language pack.

To customize the Setup of the Office 2010 Proofing Tools Kit, modify the Config.xml file in the ProofKit.WW folder. For each set of proofing tools that you do not want to install, in the OptionState element, set the State attribute to Absent.

The following example Config.xml file shows every language that has the OptionState element State attribute set to Absent. If you decide to copy this example into the Config.xml file for the Office 2010 Proofing Tools Kit, set the State attribute for each set of proofing tools that you want to deploy to Local (or Advertise, if preferred).

When you deploy the Office 2010 Proofing Tools Kit, Setup creates a local installation source on the user's computer — a copy of the compressed source files for the Office 2010 Proofing Tools Kit. Once the files have been copied to the user's computer, Setup completes the installation from the local installation source. You can minimize the load on the network by deploying the local installation source separately, before you deploy the Office 2010 Proofing Tools Kit. To precache the local installation source for the Office 2010 Proofing Tools Kit, see Precache the local installation source for Office 2010. Use the Setup.exe and Config.xml files from the ProofKit.WW folder on the Office 2010 Proofing Tools Kit CD.